Is it possible to detect manipulation by looking only at electoral returns? Drawing on work in
psychology, we exploit individuals' biases in generating numbers to highlight suspicious
digit patterns in reported vote counts. First, we show that fair election procedures produce
returns where last digits occur with equal frequency, but laboratory experiments indicate that
individuals tend to favor some numerals over others, even when subjects have incentives to
properly randomize. Second, individuals underestimate the likelihood of digit repetition in …

Is it possible to detect manipulation by looking at electoral returns only? Drawing on work in
psychology, we exploit individuals' biases in generating numbers to highlight suspicious
digit patterns in reported vote counts. First, we show that fair election procedures produce
returns where last digits occur with equal frequency, but lab experiments indicate that
individuals tend to favor small numbers, even when subjects have incentives to properly
randomize. Second, individuals underestimate the likelihood of digit repetition in sequences …